Members of Chicago's political class got a crash course Wednesday on how President Donald Trump will govern, as they fretted over an executive order on immigration that could cost the city millions in federal funding and scrambled to respond to a Twitter threat to "send in the feds" to fix the city's gun violence.

The Democratic response to the Republican president's moves was a unified one. On gun crime: Send us money to combat violence, but don't dare send in the National Guard. On immigration: Don't cut our funding, but if you do, we'll still protect immigrants from deportation and maintain our sanctuary city status.

For Trump, it was the latest example of the president placing whole swaths of the country — in this case, those who live in and represent urban America — on the defensive as he focuses on issues that got him elected as part of a get-tough-on-immigration and crack-down-on-crime agenda.

But if Trump was nodding to his political base, the moves also allowed Chicago Democrats to appeal to theirs: racial and ethnic minorities and progressives who long have advocated for immigration reform and sought crime-fighting solutions that don't violate civil rights.

"We're gonna stay a sanctuary city," Emanuel said during a City Hall news conference at the same time Trump signed his executive order in Washington. "There is no stranger among us. We welcome people, whether you're from Poland or Pakistan, whether you're from Ireland or India or Israel and whether you're from Mexico or Moldova, where my grandfather came from, you are welcome in Chicago as you pursue the American Dream."

The mayor responded to the president's vague Tuesday night tweet by saying he welcomed more federal resources to fight gun violence, but rejected the cable news network notion that the National Guard should start patrolling the South and West sides.

"I'm against it, straight up," Emanuel said before an unusually large throng of reporters, cameras and national news outlets in wake of the Trump tweet. "The National Guard has nothing to do with public safety."

As President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday to cut off some federal funding from sanctuary cities, Mayor Rahm Emanuel vowed Chicago would remain one and continue to protect immigrants from deportation.

"We're gonna stay a sanctuary city," Emanuel said in a news conference after...

Inside City Council chambers, aldermen already were scheduled to take a symbolic vote on emphasizing Chicago's status as a sanctuary city. The president's latest tweet on Chicago violence and his executive order on immigration added more fuel to rail against a president viewed by many as at odds with the city's values.

Ald. Raymond Lopez, who has been decrying an increase in gun violence in his Southwest Side 15th Ward, said the notion of sending in troops to help police Chicago would only "exacerbate an already tense situation." He said Trump's tweet was a "diversionary tactic" meant to distract from other controversial moves he's made as president in recent days.

"He's gutted women's rights issues. He's authorizing the (oil) pipeline again. But yet we're all focusing on some tweet," Lopez said. "He's just throwing out fake items just to get people's attention, just to get the base riled up, without actually doing anything about that. That's great for a TV show. That's great for a highly polarized campaign. But he's president now. It's time he acts like it."

Sanctuary status

Proclaiming that "we are going to restore the rule of law in the United States," Trump signed executive orders Wednesday authorizing the construction of a border wall with Mexico and cutting off federal grants from sanctuary cities, where local laws prohibit government workers and police officers from asking about residents' immigration status.

Trump directed Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly to work with incoming Attorney General Jeff Sessions to ensure sanctuary cities "are not eligible to receive federal grants, except as deemed necessary for law enforcement purposes." The order states Kelly and Sessions should strip the funding that is within their discretion and consistent with the law. It also directs incoming Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney to tabulate how much federal grant money is received by each of the country's sanctuary cities.

It was not immediately clear how much federal funding could be at stake for Chicago, and Emanuel declined to discuss specifics on what funding the city might lose, noting that he had not been briefed on the executive order. The White House released the document about an hour after the mayor addressed reporters.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday welcomed federal assistance to help stem Chicago violence but rejected the idea of the National Guard patrolling the city as "antithetical" to the trust he's trying to build in law enforcement.

The mayor's comments came after President Donald Trump on Tuesday evening...

Cutting off all federal funding to sanctuary cities would require action by the Republican-controlled Congress. Last year, Chicago received a little more than $1 billion in federal grant funding for myriad programs, including early childhood education, transportation, policing, health initiatives, public assistance programs and disaster management. It's unknown how much of that $1 billion could be deemed necessary for law enforcement, as laid out by Trump's order.

The city, however, does receive millions under the jurisdiction of the attorney general through the Justice Department. Justice officials issued a report last year that stated Chicago could stand to lose nearly $29 million in annual agency grants if it were to be found in violation of federal laws on detaining people to be turned over to immigration agents for possible deportation.

Trump's order also calls for the hiring of 10,000 new immigration officers and for the deportation of immigrants living here illegally who have been convicted of a crime, been charged with a crime or committed acts that "constitute a chargeable criminal offense." It also calls for deportation of those who have abused a program related to public benefits, who have been subject to "a final order of removal," or who, in the judgment of an immigration officer, "pose a risk to public safety or national security."

"Federal agencies are going to unapologetically enforce the law, no ifs ands or buts," White House press secretary Sean Spicer said in a briefing with reporters. "We're going to strip federal grant money from the sanctuary states and cities that harbor illegal immigrants."

But what policies Trump will enact and how they'll be carried out remain foggy. Democratic U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin noted Wednesday that in written answers to Senate nomination hearing questions, Sessions has been "refusing to commit to increase or even maintain federal safety grant funding to help address the gun violence crisis in Chicago."

Aldermen voted Wednesday to reaffirm that Chicago protects all residents regardless of race, ethnicity, immigration status, criminal record, gender identity and sexual orientation. In the process, they took time to bash Trump as a "demagogue."

"You mess with one in Chicago, you mess with all of us," said Northwest Side Ald. John Arena, 45th. "We are a sanctuary city. We'll stand by that. We will stand by every single citizen, every single resident of this city, regardless of your status. This is your home. That is our declaration."

Trump tweet

On Tuesday night, Trump took to Twitter to note how Chicago's shooting deaths are on pace to exceed the total in 2016, when the city recorded the most homicides in two decades.

"If Chicago doesn't fix the horrible 'carnage' going on, 228 shootings in 2017 with 42 killings (up 24% from 2016), I will send in the Feds!" Trump tweeted, including numbers that come from Chicago Tribune data.

Trump's tweet came after Fox News' Bill O'Reilly aired a segment on "chaos in Chicago," concluding that "President Trump can call in the National Guard because the governor won't." And it came a day after Emanuel questioned Trump's focus on the size of the crowd at his inauguration ceremony and for missing a chance with his speech to appeal to "our better angels as a country."

The president did not specify what sending in the feds could mean during an ABC interview that aired Wednesday night, saying Chicago is "not doing the job" and calling the city "like a war zone."

"Now, if they want help, I would love to help them. I will send in what we have to send in. Maybe they're not going to have to be so politically correct," Trump said.

President Donald Trump tweeted Tuesday night about Chicago’s violence, saying he will “send in the Feds!” if the city “doesn’t fix the horrible ‘carnage’ going on.”

Trump’s tweet refers back to a line in his inaugural address Friday about “the crime, and the gangs, and the drugs that have stolen...

"I want them to fix the problem. You can't have thousands of people being shot in a city in a country that I happen to be president of. Maybe it's OK if somebody else is president," he said. "They have a problem that's very easily fixable. They're gonna have to get tougher and stronger and smarter."

Emanuel is in a tough spot. With Chicago's ongoing crime problems eroding local trust in his administration and garnering so much national attention from Trump and others, it could be difficult for the mayor to reject outright offers of help. But he might not want to be seen as turning over crime fighting to federal officials.

At the same time, the mayor is trying to increase some residents' trust in law enforcement that was hurt by the Laquan McDonald police shooting and other incidents in the past year, and he said the National Guard "is antithetical to the spirit of what community policing is."

On WGN radio, Gov. Bruce Rauner said his administration has had conversations with the DEA and FBI, but said sending in the National Guard would be "a mistake."

Spicer indicated Trump was waiting for Emanuel to ask for help dealing with Chicago crime, referring to a meeting the two had in New York last month.

Trump said on ABC: "All I'm saying is to the mayor, who came up to my office recently, I say you have to smarten up and you have to toughen up. Because you can't let that happen."

Emanuel on Wednesday said he talked with Trump about the kind of federal help Chicago would like to receive, though he did not offer specifics on what he requested. He also noted meetings he had with Trump's chief of staff Reince Priebus and Vice President Mike Pence during the presidential transition.

"I've been very clear about what I think we need to do, and I think you can say this, and I'm saying it correctly: I'm not a shy person," Emanuel said. "But I look forward to working with the new administration on expanding what exists today. We have a partnership. There are resources."